Toronto plastic bag ban not settled yet, Rob Ford predicts

Mayor Rob Ford thinks he can find a way to undo city council’s decision to ban plastic shopping bags, which he calls “outright stupid.”

“I don’t see this ban going through as expected Jan. 1,” Mr. Ford said Thursday. The mayor says the city solicitor will report in the fall on the municipality’s legal grounds.

“She thinks we won’t be able to win this in court and that we shouldn’t have done it in the first place. So when that gets to executive I think some of the councillors who voted in favour of this ban will reverse their vote,” Mr. Ford said.

While Mayor Rob Ford had harsh words for some of his fellow politicians in the wake of the plastic bag ban, he reserved some sharp criticism for Toronto residents.
“We have to get rid of some of these councillors. It’s the people’s fault,” he told AM640’s John Oakley in a radio interview Thursday morning.

“Honestly, I get so frustrated because the people are just sitting back and listening, but they don’t pick up the phone, they don’t go down to city hall, they don’t ask questions,” he said. “It’s frustrating, I want people to get engaged in municipal politics and find out who their councillor is and know how they vote.”

— Natalie Alcoba, National Post

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, however, Anna Kinastowski, the head of the legal department, declined to give an opinion until staff had fully digested the decision.

“A bag ban may in fact be legally supportable, but we haven’t looked into it yet,” she said. “Council’s discretion is pretty broad, but we have to determine that there’s a municipal purpose, that there are reasons for this and that this is a rational solution to a problem.”

On Wednesday, city council voted 27 to 17, without study or consultation, to “to prohibit all City of Toronto retail stores from providing customers with single-use plastic carryout (shopping) bags, including those advertised as compostable, biodegradable, photodegradable or similar.”

The surprise move is sending shockwaves across the city, as shoppers, store owners, environmentalists and business advocates scramble to understand the ramifications before the Jan. 1, 2013, implementation date.

“It was the right thing to do,” said Councillor David Shiner, the Ford ally who unexpectedly moved the winning motion. “It’s a lousy bag. It rips, your groceries fall through the bottom of it. It’s time to get something better at the checkout stand and this is the way to get retailers to do something about it.”

But city council has yet to approve a bylaw that would enact the ban. Usually, legal staff are given some notice to draft a by-law, but since the prohibition took everyone by surprise, one will likely not be ready until the fall, said Ms. Kinastowski, the city solicitor.

Ms. Kinastowski said it would be “absolutely unheard of” for council to reject a by-law that reflects its approved direction. That means that the most likely way for council to reverse this decision would be for a councillor to attain the support of a lofty two-thirds of the council to reopen the matter for debate. The matter could be reopened with a simple majority after a year.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a choice,” said Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti. “I think once the legal opinions start to fly here, and once the lawsuits start to fly here, I think council will have to rescind a part of this.”

Some councillors said this wouldn’t have happened if the mayor had not pushed to rescind the bag fee bylaw, that demands retailers charge 5¢ (6¢ with HST) for a plastic bag, on July 1. Councillors knew that if it came to the council floor, anything could happen.

“Maybe one of the dumb things was bringing [the bag fee] back to the floor, it was a bit of a pandora’s box that was opened,” Councillor Josh Colle said. “We got to a policy position in a speedier way than we thought, but when you look around the world, Italy has [banned the bag], Ireland has done it, Seattle is doing it.… If it’s so evil, just man up and do it.”

Others weighed in on the issue.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers called the move “reckless” and urged councillors to bring the matter back to council for prudent review. John Scott, President and CEO of CFIG, said councillors were either unaware, or uninterested, that the industry reported a 59% plastic bag use drop in Ontario in three years.

Joanne St. Goddard, executive director for the Recycling Council of Ontario, said they had been concerned about council rescinding the bag fee. “We never expected they would ‘one up it’ by banning plastic bags altogether,” she said in a statement.